A re-editing of F.N. Robinson's second edition of The works of Geoffrey Chaucer published in 1957 by the team of experts at the Riverside Institute who have greatly expanded the introductory material, explanatory notes, textual notes, bibliography and glossary. The result of many years' study. The Riverside Chaucer is the most authentic and exciting edition available of Chaucer's complete works.

Both an enhanced digital edition and a handsome print volume, The Norton Chaucer provides the complete poetry and prose, meticulously glossed and annotated specifically for undergraduate readers, with apparatus reflecting current scholarship—all at an unmatched value.

Chaucer lived through a period of extraordinary upheaval: a protracted war with France, devastating plague, the peasants' revolt, religious controversy, and the overthrow of the king. Compact and comprehensive, this book offers a wide-ranging account of the medieval society from which works such as The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde sprang, and shows how these and other works manifest that society in fictional form. Significant aspects of the literary scene, such as patronage, audience, and performance, help to place Chaucer's practices in their historical framework, and his treatment of love, paganism, and reality are framed within their intellectual and philosophical contexts. The modern reception of Chaucer in film and television adaptations is also examined. Seen through the lens of his cultural experience, this is the perfect critical companion to Chaucer's life and poetry. The book includes a chronology of Chaucer's life and time, suggestions for further reading, websites, illustrations, and a comprehensive index. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The Book of the Duchess is a surreal poem that was presumably written as an elegy for Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster's (the wife of Geoffrey Chaucer's patron, the royal Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt) death in 1368 or 1369. The poem was written a few years after the event and is widely regarded as flattering to both the Duke and the Duchess. It has 1334 lines and is written in octosyllabic rhyming couplets.

This edition provides the general information on Chaucer's life, language, and works that one needs for a first reading of Chaucer, and difficult words and constructions are glossed on the pages. The Appendix contains the materials, including the extensive notes and glossary, for a more thorough understanding of Chaucer's works.

“This book has been more helpful to the students—both the better ones and the lesser ones—than any other book I have ever used in any of my classes in my more than a quarter century of university teaching.” —RICHARD L. KIRKWOOD, University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire This Norton Critical Edition includes: • The medieval masterpiece’s most popular tales, including—new to the Third Edition—The Man of Law’s Prologue and Tale and The Second Nun’s Prologue and Tale. • Extensive marginal glosses, explanatory footnotes, a preface, and a guide to Chaucer’s language by V. A. Kolve and Glending Olson. • Sources and analogues arranged by tale. • Twelve critical essays, seven of them new to the Third Edition. • A Chronology, a Short Glossary, and a Selected Bibliography. About the Series Read by more than 12 million students over fifty-five years, Norton Critical Editions set the standard for apparatus that is right for undergraduate readers. The three-part format—annotated text, contexts, and criticism—helps students to better understand, analyze, and appreciate the literature, while opening a wide range of teaching possibilities for instructors. Whether in print or in digital format, Norton Critical Editions provide all the resources students need.

A fresh, modern prose retelling captures the vigorous and bawdy spirit of Chaucer’s classic Renowned critic, historian, and biographer Peter Ackroyd takes on what is arguably the greatest poem in the English language and presents the work in a prose vernacular that makes it accessible to modern readers while preserving the spirit of the original. A mirror for medieval society, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales concerns a motley group of pilgrims who meet in a London inn on their way to Canterbury and agree to take part in a storytelling competition. Ranging from comedy to tragedy, pious sermon to ribald farce, heroic adventure to passionate romance, the tales serve not only as a summation of the sensibility of the Middle Ages but as a representation of the drama of the human condition. Ackroyd’s contemporary prose emphasizes the humanity of these characters—as well as explicitly rendering the naughty good humor of the writer whose comedy influenced Fielding and Dickens—yet still masterfully evokes the euphonies and harmonies of Chaucer’s verse. This retelling is sure to delight modern readers and bring a new appreciation to those already familiar with the classic tales.

The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer is an extensively revised version of the first edition, which has become a classic in the field. This new volume responds to the success of the first edition and to recent debates in Chaucer Studies. Important material has been updated, and new contributions have been commissioned to take into account recent trends in literary theory as well as in studies of Chaucer's works. New chapters cover the literary inheritance traceable in his works to French and Italian sources, his style, as well as new approaches to his work. Other topics covered include the social and literary scene in England in Chaucer's time, and comedy, pathos and romance in the Canterbury Tales. The volume now offers a useful chronology, and the bibliography has been entirely updated to provide an indispensable guide for today's student of Chaucer.